Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 12 March 2025 to Question 36448 on Pension Credit, how many staff were seconded from the Child Maintenance Services and Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt to process pension credit applications; and for what time period.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
100 colleagues have been redeployed from Child Maintenance Services and 20 colleagues redeployed from Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt to support Pension Credit activity.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of Pension Credit applications rejected by decision makers since September 2024; and what the reasons were for the rejection of those applications.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The latest published data on Pension Credit applications and awards was published on 27 February [Pension Credit applications and awards: February 2025 - GOV.UK]. This showed that DWP cleared 232,200 Pension Credit claims between 29 July 2024 and 23 February 2025, of which 117,800 claims were awarded Pension Credit and 114,500 were not awarded Pension Credit. In common with all income-related benefits, a person’s eligibility for Pension Credit depends on their financial and household circumstances. The most common reason why a person might not qualify for Pension Credit is because their household income is too high.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 25 February 2025 to Question 31507 on Pension Credit, from which directorate have the additional staff been deployed to process pension credit applications; and for how long the additional staff have been seconded to process pension credit applications.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The directorates within DWP where colleagues were redeployed to support Pension Credit activity were from Child Maintenance Service and Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt. Other additions were via use of a flexible pool of DWP colleagues that move across functions as required.
Our approach to deploying additional people to support Pension Credit activity was taken in a manner to not disadvantage other services. Backlogs have not emerged as a consequence of these moves.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 25 February 2025 to Question 31507 on Pension Credit, whether she is taking steps to ensure that backlogs of work are actioned within directorates that have seconded additional staff to process pension credit applications.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The directorates within DWP where colleagues were redeployed to support Pension Credit activity were from Child Maintenance Service and Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt. Other additions were via use of a flexible pool of DWP colleagues that move across functions as required.
Our approach to deploying additional people to support Pension Credit activity was taken in a manner to not disadvantage other services. Backlogs have not emerged as a consequence of these moves.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 25 February 2025 to Question, what performance matrix she is following to monitor the effectiveness of the funding for additional staffing to reducing pension credit application processing times to a planned timescale of 50 working days.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government has recently put in place the biggest ever pension Credit tave-up drive. To help ensure it has the capacity to assess all claims within reasonable timeframes, the Department has deployed over 500 additional staff through a combination of internal redeployments, use of external providers and external recruitment.
We measure Pension Credit performance via our published 50 working day timeliness measure and monitor weekly average actual clearance times. The most recent information on processing times for Pension Credit was published in DWP annual report and accounts 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK (ARA) on 22nd July 2024. This shows that in 2023/24 DWP cleared 192,000 Pension Credit claims within the planned 50 working day timescale, equating to 77.7%. The next publication of the ARA will include claims processed in the Financial Year 2024 to 2025, which is due for publication in the summer.
As a result of this investment in staff the latest Average Actual Clearance Time is now down to 56.2 working days in week commencing 24th February 2025 after a peak of 87 working days week commencing 9 December 2024.
Please note, the Average Actual Clearance Time figures shown is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. It is rounded to the nearest working day and based on the week the claim was cleared, rather than the week the claim was made.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 25 February 2025 to Question 31507 on Pension Credit, what departmental budget stream is supporting the funding for additional staff to process pension credit applications.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government has recently put in place the biggest ever pension Credit tave-up drive. To help ensure it has the capacity to assess all claims within reasonable timeframes, the Department has deployed over 500 additional staff through a combination of internal redeployments, use of external providers and external recruitment.
We measure Pension Credit performance via our published 50 working day timeliness measure and monitor weekly average actual clearance times. The most recent information on processing times for Pension Credit was published in DWP annual report and accounts 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK (ARA) on 22nd July 2024. This shows that in 2023/24 DWP cleared 192,000 Pension Credit claims within the planned 50 working day timescale, equating to 77.7%. The next publication of the ARA will include claims processed in the Financial Year 2024 to 2025, which is due for publication in the summer.
As a result of this investment in staff the latest Average Actual Clearance Time is now down to 56.2 working days in week commencing 24th February 2025 after a peak of 87 working days week commencing 9 December 2024.
Please note, the Average Actual Clearance Time figures shown is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. It is rounded to the nearest working day and based on the week the claim was cleared, rather than the week the claim was made.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 25 February 2025 to Question 31507, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of additional staff on pension credit application processing times.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government has recently put in place the biggest ever pension Credit tave-up drive. To help ensure it has the capacity to assess all claims within reasonable timeframes, the Department has deployed over 500 additional staff through a combination of internal redeployments, use of external providers and external recruitment.
We measure Pension Credit performance via our published 50 working day timeliness measure and monitor weekly average actual clearance times. The most recent information on processing times for Pension Credit was published in DWP annual report and accounts 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK (ARA) on 22nd July 2024. This shows that in 2023/24 DWP cleared 192,000 Pension Credit claims within the planned 50 working day timescale, equating to 77.7%. The next publication of the ARA will include claims processed in the Financial Year 2024 to 2025, which is due for publication in the summer.
As a result of this investment in staff the latest Average Actual Clearance Time is now down to 56.2 working days in week commencing 24th February 2025 after a peak of 87 working days week commencing 9 December 2024.
Please note, the Average Actual Clearance Time figures shown is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. It is rounded to the nearest working day and based on the week the claim was cleared, rather than the week the claim was made.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to seek improvements to the child maintenance system; and what recent discussions she has had with statutory and non statutory bodies to discuss system improvements.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is taking steps to make improvements across the child maintenance system and create a modern, accessible and robust service through our Service Modernisation Programme and CMS reforms.
Throughout our Service Modernisation Programme, we have worked with suppliers who have experience of transforming organisations globally – this is ongoing, and we benefit from their insight and innovation. Additionally, we have worked with other government departments to understand elements of their transformation, for example HMRC on how they have modernised guidance.
The Service Modernisation Programme (SMP) has already delivered significant improvements to the customer experience through the provision of online services and Digital Assist Telephony Service enabling parents to access their on-line My Child Maintenance Case at any time. We have restructured our telephony call routing system, made incremental improvements to customer communications, including a full review of letters, and made significant advancements to our IT systems. The wide-reaching programme aims to continue to reform and modernise CMS services with increased effectiveness and efficiency and will continue to engage a wide range of statutory and non-statutory bodies to do this.
The CMS has recently concluded a public consultation on policy changes to the CMS (The Child Maintenance: Improving the collection and transfer of payments) and are analysing the responses. This includes removing the Direct Pay service and managing all CMS cases in one service to allow the CMS to tackle non-compliance faster. The consultation also sought views on how victims and survivors of domestic abuse can be better supported to use CMS, and whether removing Direct Pay completely would benefit victims and survivors of domestic abuse. This is ongoing and the Government will publish a response in due course.
Following the Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023 receiving royal assent in 2023, government consulted on accelerating enforcement to inform its proposed regulations to support the introduction of administrative liability orders. Proposed changes will streamline the enforcement process and facilitate compliance from paying parents more quickly. We are working to bring them into effect as soon as possible.
The department is also conducting a programme of work to review the maintenance calculation to make sure it is fit for purpose, reflects today’s social trends and is future proofed to handle further changes.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 11 October 2024 to Question 5385 on Pension Credit, what recent steps she has taken to ensure that funding for additional staffing is reducing pension credit application processing times.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
As referenced in previous responses HL4289 and Question 5385, DWP works to a planned timescale of 50 working days to clear Pension Credit claims.
The funding was the first stage followed by securing staffing resource, training those people and enabling learning consolidation to process Pension Credit claims. As a result the Department has deployed over 500 additional people to ensure it has the capacity to assess all claims in reasonable timescales.
Since this action, the latest Average Actual Clearance Time is now down to 56 working days in week commencing 3 February 2025 after a peak of 87 working days week commencing 9 December 2024. However, Pension Credit is a complex benefit, and some claims require additional investigation or information from the customer, which can result in longer processing times.
Statistics on Pension Credit application volumes were published on 28 November 2024. This includes numbers of applications that were received, awarded and not awarded, up to 17 November 2024.Pension Credit applications and awards: November 2024 - GOV.UK The latest publication is due on 27th February 2025 and will cover data up to week commencing 17th February 2025.
Please note, the Average Actual Clearance Time figures shown is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. It is rounded to the nearest working day and based on the week the claim was cleared, rather than the week the claim was made.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Answer of 5 February 2025 to Question HL4289 on Pension Credit and with reference to the oral contribution of the Economic Secretary to the Treasury of 3 December 2024, Official Report, column 141, what steps she is taking to improve the processing of pension credit claims.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
As referenced in previous responses HL4289 and Question 5385, DWP works to a planned timescale of 50 working days to clear Pension Credit claims.
The funding was the first stage followed by securing staffing resource, training those people and enabling learning consolidation to process Pension Credit claims. As a result the Department has deployed over 500 additional people to ensure it has the capacity to assess all claims in reasonable timescales.
Since this action, the latest Average Actual Clearance Time is now down to 56 working days in week commencing 3 February 2025 after a peak of 87 working days week commencing 9 December 2024. However, Pension Credit is a complex benefit, and some claims require additional investigation or information from the customer, which can result in longer processing times.
Statistics on Pension Credit application volumes were published on 28 November 2024. This includes numbers of applications that were received, awarded and not awarded, up to 17 November 2024.Pension Credit applications and awards: November 2024 - GOV.UK The latest publication is due on 27th February 2025 and will cover data up to week commencing 17th February 2025.
Please note, the Average Actual Clearance Time figures shown is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. It is rounded to the nearest working day and based on the week the claim was cleared, rather than the week the claim was made.